Explanation time

I've been preoccupied for the past couple of weeks, hence, no blog posts. Let me explain (by the way, it's all Nathan's fault).

For my birthday, Nathan bought me a new book, "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. I was hesitant about the book because the author is mormon (yes, yes, I should be more open mided and/or accepting...) and because of it's crappy movie trailer. But Nathan said the book was right up my alley because it is "about a teenage vampire." So I gave it a try. As I began the book, my first impression was, "You can really tell this is a first-time author." It was not very gripping initially, and the chronology of the first person telling was muddled because of the author's stylistic choices. But that rapidly changed into an amazing book (and I don't know if it's my imagination, but the writing got a lot better too). The story is written from the perspective of a teenage girl, and the way it's written you really feel like you could be that girl. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that when the girl experiences an emotion, the reader experiences the emotion. For myself, I could really feel as if I was in the story and not just sitting on my bed reading a book. Oh, by the way, I finished the book in two days (498 pages).

So naturally I wanted to read the rest of the books in the series. Nathan and I walked up and down Shattuck and looked in two or three bookstores, but this being the sh*thole that is Berkeley, they didn't have the second book. Especially irritating is the fact that it took us about 15 minutes just to find a parking spot, but that's life in Berkeley. When we got home I hopped on Amazon, and much to my delight, I found the next three books all on sale. I ordered all three and spent the next few days anxiously awaiting my delivery, which got here last Thursday or Friday. Much to Nathan's chagrin (though it's all his fault, remember), I dove into the second book. And finished it. I dove into the third book. And finished it. I dove into the fourth book. And finished it just last night. So....um.....that's why I haven't posted anything for a long while. I've been reading reading reading, 2,442 pages of reading.

Here are the four beautiful books.

Apparently, I'm not the only on in the family who likes the books.

George does too! Although Fred feels they're "below him"...

...really they're below George (heh heh heh)

Anyway, I loved all of the books. Stephenie Meyer was able to write the characters as growing, but in a satisfying way, so that the reader is just as happy with each subsequent book even though the characters are not exactly the same, but changing. That probably sounds silly or "d'uh!" but I would imagine it's very hard to do. I loved the first book for one reason (and in the attempt to not ruin the reading experience for anyone else, I'm not going to say what that reason is), the second book for a similar reason but also many different reasons, etc. I see my generalities in attempting to hide the plot of the books is making my explanation a bunch of vague gobbledygook, so I'll stop here. Suffice it to say, I loved the books, and I want more!

Check out Stephenie Meyer's website here, did I mention she's from Tempe and does signings at Changing Hands? (I know I didn't, but I am now). Another reason to miss AZ, I'd love to get a signed copy of one of these books.

Also, I saw the movie "Twilight" and it's very "eh". When I first saw the preview (before I knew anything about the books), I thought to myself, "Wow, another crappy vampire movie. Great! Oh look, it's the guy that played Cedric Diggory in 'Harry Potter'." After I finished reading the book, I really wanted to see the movie. It was bad. I knew it would be bad. But it was bad. Neither of the two leads could act. Period. And the vampire special effects left a lot to be desired. I will say, however, that the guy that played Edward looked that part. So whenever he was quiet, he did a decent job, you know, just having a face and being seen. I'll still get it on Netflix when it comes out, but not for itself, for the book.

Plans for the weekend

Grade Midterms, play soccer, read about fMRI, knit and watch Netflix ("Project Runway" and "Friday Night Lights")...oh, and drink coffee. I guess the good outweighs the bad, but I really, really, really, really, really, really hate grading exams! Bright spark, I grade with "Frasier" on, which helps keep me sane and offers distractions when I need a nano-break.

I've finished the hat I was working on, and I started the scarf last night. I might unravel that though, I'm not sure how the design is going to look. It's just a 3x3 ribbed stripe pattern all the way up, because I thought (and Nathan agreed) that the basket weave pattern that I was planning might be too feminine. I love the basket weave ("I love Santino!" ~that's for you, hon). I've made myself three scarves of that pattern. Take a look.

The coffee just a-finished a-brewing, so I'm gonna get what I want, which is coffee. Adios.

Palin guilty of abusing gubernatorial power

The republicans tried to delay the release of this report until after the election, but failed (as they do with so many things). Now the public can read all about how Sarah Palin, the vice presidential nominee of the Republican party, abused her gubernatorial powers in Alaska (300 page report). The bipartisan panal found her to be "... in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain."

On an even more disgusting note, attendees of McCain/Palin rallies are turning into future lynch mobs. I use this term literally. They have been heard to chant "Kill him" at the mention of Barack Obama's name. Does this scare anyone else? Palin's response to this, "Boy, you guys just get it!"

Full "The Daily Voice" article:
"Senator John McCain and his running mate Governor Sarah Palin have been accusing Senator Barack Obama of associating with terrorists in recent days, and as a result, audience members at McCain and Palin rallies have called Obama a "terrorist" and threatened to kill him.

"Sarah Palin was on the verge of inciting a race riot in northern Florida" this week, the Nation reported. The paper said Republican audience members "hurled a racial epitaph" at an African American member of the media while other audience members yelled "kill him" and "treason!" when Barack Obama's name was mentioned. Palin did nothing to stop the attacks and reportedly responded: "Boy, you guys just get it!"

Palin began the attack on Monday when she told 8,000 fans at a rally in Florida that Obama "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist," according to the Washington Post. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she said.

The McCain-Palin ticket has become increasingly negative in recent days and some have called their attacks "dangerous" and "racist." But it's not just Obama who has come under attack.

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank describes the scene at a rally in Clearwater, Florida this week, where he said "arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin blamed CBS News anchor Katie Couric for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." Palin supporters then "turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse," Milbank reported. "Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, 'Sit down, boy.'""

Just 'cause.

My little study buddy

My kitties don't understand the concept of mom working. I'll be reading an article or textbook and they will walk on top of me and lay down for a nice long nap. George likes to lay on textbooks in particular. Here is George helping me study earlier tonight:

And here's my view of his fluffiness:


On a related subject, George was helping his dad both study and eat his lunch earlier.

What a good helper!

What I'm reading

Martin, A., & Chao, L. L. (2001). Semantic memory and the brain: Structure and processes. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 11, 194-210.

Levine, B., Turner, G. R., Tisserand, D., Hevenor, S. J., Graham, S. J., & McIntosh, A. R. (2004). The functional neuroanatomy of episodic and semantic autobiographical remembering: A prospective functional MRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16 (9), 1633-1646.

Ashby, F. G., & O'Brien, J. B. (2004). Category learning and multiple memory systems. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9 (2), 83-89.

I have to read these articles for my Learning and Memory course with Prof John Kihlstrom. It's not my area of research, so it's nice to be exposed to the material. However, much more reading is assigned every week than I'm willing or able to read. For instance, one week there were 4 chapters in a book and 9 articles assigned. That's a lot, but I learned my first year of grad school that there's really no way you can get everything done that you want/need to, at least not at the super-high-absolute-best-of-your-abilities level. So that week I only read 2 of the chapters, which were each 30 pages, and part of one article. Recognizing that you can't spend as much time as you would like on all areas of your work is a grad school life saver. When I was an undergrad, I was a super overacheiver trying to maintain my 4+ GPA. That's just not the way it works in grad school, and grades no longer matter because no one's ever going to look at them, not when you're applying for a job nor when you're applying for a grant. So in that one aspect, grad school is less stressful than undergrad. I've shared this life lesson with Nathan, and I think it's helped him a bit with his recently acquired grad school stress level. But that's enough about this, because I've got reading to get back to.

What I'm reading

I thought it might be nice to keep track of things I'm reading. I'm compulsive about a lot of things, one of which is archiving my life for fear of forgetting. This fear was recently reinforced by the crash of my computer's hard drive. Thankfully, I had backed up a few days earlier. Unfortunately, I'd mistaken the structure of my data, and while I thought I'd backed up everything, I'd in fact not included photos from the last 2 months and various other things. Also, my mac's hard drive was partitioned into a smaller windows hard drive, and I lost everything on my windows side. Nathan and I went out the next day and bought two external hard drives, and I've now cloned my hard drive. Let's hope that keeps my fear/stress demons at bay.

But the point of this post is books:

Palmer, S.E.(1999), Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology, MIT Press. I'm reading this book because I'm teaching with Steve Palmer this semester. In order to get my tuition and fees paid for by the school, Berkeley requires that a graduate student either be hired as a GSI (graduate student instructor) or GSR (graduate student research). If you or your advisor has funding, then GSR is the way to go. Unfortunately, my advisor, Bill Prinzmetal, and I are severly lacking in monetary bulk as of late. Therefore, I've been teaching as a GSI for the past 2, and now 3, semesters. Anyway, it's a pretty good book. Steve is a world famous vision researcher, so it's really an honor to get to teach with him and whatnot. But it's also a pain in the ass to be a GSI and take classes of your own and try to run research and try to keep your RA busy with research and try to make time with your husband and try to not have a panic attack. But, that's a day in the life of a graduate student.

Huettel, S.A., Song, A.W., McCarthy, G. (2004). Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Sinauer. This book is for a class I'm taking on fMRI from Mark D'Esposito. I learned how to run EEG over the summer, but the future of cognitive psychology involves neuroscience, so I'm bolstering my neuroscience chops by taking this class. Plus, it's a requirement if at some point I want to use one of Mark's scanners for a project. It's a good class, but jam packed with knowledge which is covered at a lightning pace (how I long for a medium pace). So I'm hoping reading the book at my own speed will complement my weekly mental barage of info.

Luck, S.J. (2005). An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique, MIT Press. I'd intended to read this book over the summer while I was learning EEG. I started out strong, but didn't get anywhere near the finish. So, I'm trying to plug on through.

"The Red Wyvern" by Katharine Kerr. This I'm reading entirely for enjoyment. Usually, I'll get through a couple pages a day when waiting for the bus or a class to start. It's part of a cheesy (but delicious) fantasy series that I've read a couple of times in the past, complete with magic, elves, dragons, and geeks (when you count the readers). I'm hoping the author finishes the series soon, because it's already something like 11 books. When I finish this, I think I'm going to re-read Harry Potter again. I re-read of the Ender's Game books over the summer, which are also great, more sci-fi than fantasy.